Pro Ajax and Java Frameworks

334 Pages·2006·10.33 MB·English

by  Nathaniel T. Schutta

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EMPOWERING JAVA DEVELOPERS WITH AJAX TECHNIQUES THE EXPERT’S VOICE® IN WEB DEVELOPMENT
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Pro Ajax and Java
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Dear Reader,
r
If you are a professional Java developer and you want to know how best to go
about adding Ajax functionality to your web applications to enrich your users’ o
experience, then Pro Ajax and Javais the right book for you. Ajax allows us to
Nathaniel T. Schutta, build highly interactive, desktop-like web applications that can be deployed Pro Ajax
coauthor of through any modern web browser without the need for special plug-ins. Though A
Foundations of Ajax Ajax is server-side agnostic, it certainly plays well within the rich Java ecosystem.
This book teaches you what you need to know by using tightly focused exam- j
ples that aren’t cluttered with extraneous details, putting you on the fast track to a
using Ajax in your own Java applications. You already know how to develop web
applications, so this book focuses on teaching the killer techniques you’ll need x
to bring your applications to life with Ajax, including autocomplete, form vali-
dation, dynamic visual effects, and much, much more.
We start off by providing a brief summary of the subject area, followed by a a
guide to creating the perfect development environment for developing Ajax Java
n
in Java, including code editing and formatting, DOM inspection, debugging,
Ryan Asleson,coauthor of testing, and logging tools. d
Next, we look in depth at the most popular Ajax libraries and toolkits avail-
Foundations of Ajax and
able, and what they can do to simplify and speed up our Ajax development—
Prototype, script.aculo.us, Dojo, DWR, AjaxTags, and Taconite. In the final J
RELATED TITLE section, we explore Ajax development within four of the most popular Java
frameworks—Spring, Struts, Tapestry, and JSF. a
Practical Ajax Projects
with Java Thanks for picking up this book. We hope you’ll have as much fun reading it
as we had writing it! v
Nate Schutta and Ryan Asleson a
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AS and
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this print for content only—size & color not accurate spine = 0.784" 336 page count
Asleson _677-3FRONT.fm Page i Tuesday, June 20, 2006 6:58 AM
Pro Ajax and Java
■ ■ ■
Nathaniel T. Schutta and
Ryan Asleson
Asleson _677-3FRONT.fm Page ii Tuesday, June 20, 2006 6:58 AM
Pro Ajax and Java
Copyright © 2006 by Nathaniel T. Schutta and Ryan Asleson
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Asleson _677-3FRONT.fm Page iii Tuesday, June 20, 2006 6:58 AM
To Christine, for always believing.
—Nathaniel T. Schutta
For Sara, the love of my life, and Adam, my favorite playmate.
—Ryan Asleson
Asleson _677-3FRONT.fm Page iv Tuesday, June 20, 2006 6:58 AM
Asleson _677-3FRONT.fm Page v Tuesday, June 20, 2006 6:58 AM
Contents at a Glance
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi
About the Technical Reviewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xiii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
PART 1 Introducing Ajax
■ ■ ■
■ CHAPTER 1 What Is Ajax? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
■ CHAPTER 2 Development Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
PART 2 Libraries and Toolkits
■ ■ ■
■ CHAPTER 3 Java-Agnostic Toolkits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
■ CHAPTER 4 Java-Specific Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
PART 3 Web Frameworks
■ ■ ■
■ CHAPTER 5 Struts and Ajax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
■ CHAPTER 6 Tapestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
■ CHAPTER 7 Spring and Ajax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
■ CHAPTER 8 JavaServer Faces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
■ INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
v
Asleson _677-3FRONT.fm Page vi Tuesday, June 20, 2006 6:58 AM
Asleson _677-3FRONT.fm Page vii Tuesday, June 20, 2006 6:58 AM
CCoonntteennttss
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi
About the Technical Reviewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xiii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
PART 1 Introducing Ajax
■ ■ ■
■ CHAPTER 1 What Is Ajax? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Rise of the Web Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
And Then There Was Ajax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The XMLHttpRequest Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Methods and Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
An Example Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Avoiding Common Gotchas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Ajax Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
The Fade Anything Technique (FAT). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Auto Refresh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Partial Page Paint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Draggable DOM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
■ CHAPTER 2 Development Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
JavaScript Source Code Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
JSEclipse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
NetBeans JavaScript Plug-in. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
JavaScript Compression and Obfuscation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
The Dojo Toolkit’s JavaScript Compressor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Inspecting a DOM Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Mouseover DOM Inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Debugging Ajax Requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
NetBeans HTTP Monitor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Firefox FireBug Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
vii
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viii ■ CONTENTS
JavaScript Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Log4JS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Lumberjack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
JavaScript Debugging Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Using Venkman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Testing Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
JsUnit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Selenium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
PART 2 Libraries and Toolkits
■ ■ ■
■ CHAPTER 3 Java-Agnostic Toolkits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Prototype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
$(). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Working with Forms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Manipulating the DOM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Try: Simplified Browser Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Ajax Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
script.aculo.us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Autocomplete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Dojo Toolkit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Animations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
dojo.io.bind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Taconite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Taconite on the Client Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Taconite on the Server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Getting Started with Taconite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
■ CHAPTER 4 Java-Specific Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
DWR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Installation Verification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
JavaScript Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
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■ CONTENTS ix
AjaxTags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
The Ajax “Killer Application”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
AjaxTags Autocomplete Component. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Other Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
PART 3 Web Frameworks
■ ■ ■
■ CHAPTER 5 Struts and Ajax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Struts Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Ajax Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Struts Validation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Struts and Ajax Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Ajax-Powered Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Implementing Struts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Struts and Ajax Design Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
The Future of Struts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Struts 1.3 and Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Struts Shale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Struts Ti. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
■ CHAPTER 6 Tapestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
What Is Tapestry? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Calling the Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Tapestry Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Tapestry Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Tapestry and Ajax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Tacos Components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Setting Up Tacos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Using a Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Enabling Debug Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Modifying the Form Example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217